


everything is golden

by aderyn_a



Category: Figure Skating RPF, Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Olympics RPF
Genre: F/M, here have some angst, that hunger games au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 01:50:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14250498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn_a/pseuds/aderyn_a
Summary: By the end, it all feels inevitable. Like there was no way they couldn’t have won. Like their names had already been written in the books of the winners - forever intertwined, syllables combining so that no one remembers where one of them starts and one of them ends.





	everything is golden

By the end, it all feels inevitable. Like there was no way they couldn’t have won. Like their names had already been written in the books of the winners - forever intertwined, syllables combining so that no one remembers where one of them starts and one of them ends.

Some days he even fools himself. Some days, he forgets that they almost didn’t win. Forgets what it took to survive.

But then he’ll drop a fork onto a plate, children will run past the window shrieking with laughter. And it will sound like a cannon, like a hungry crowd. And suddenly. He remembers.

 

* * *

 

They call his name first.

The first thing he thinks is thank god his brothers are too old. If he’d been picked even last year, they’d have volunteered. They wouldn’t have even hesitated.

But they’re on the outskirts of the crowd, with the rest of the adults. And he’s on the inside and suddenly there’s a clear path in the crowd and all he has to do is walk twenty short steps and he’s on the stage.

“Turn around, son,” says the mayor, and he realizes he’s been facing the giant screen, where the cameras have thrown his face twenty feet tall.

He turns to the crowd. And there are his brothers, his parents, his cousins. The whole mass of family. He can see them all now, see how much space they take up in the crowd. And honestly, given the odds, it’s a miracle he’s the first of them to be chosen.

May the odds be ever in your favor. Maybe they are. If there has to be a Moir in the games, it’s best that it’s him. He’s strong, more athletic than half the kids in this crowd. Maybe he can survive more than the first day. Maybe he can win this.

And then they call her name.

The words punch between his ribs and his ears ring and that’s what he gets for even thinking for a second this might be okay.

He finds her as the crowd pulls back from her, like a drop of oil in water. Her hair has gotten long and falls in loose curls down her back. In the sun it’s almost red.

And, Jesus, it should have been anyone but her. He could do this if it were anyone but her.

And then she’s on the stage beside him. Her shoulders are back, her posture dancer-perfect. He feels a flash of anger, sharp through his chest. She’s composed. They’re both going to die and she’s standing here like she’s about to go out on stage for the annual carnival performance.

And then she meets his gaze. She’s not crying, but the whites of her eyes are bloodshot. And she’s not composed. She’s performing.

The cameras want tears, want sobbing contestants dragged to the stage, want him punching the mayor in the face and trying to flee. But he won’t give them that. His world might be splitting at the seams, but he has some pride.

He pulls his shoulders back, stands taller beside her.

His world might have fallen apart. He might want to burn this whole district down. But he won’t let them see that. They can’t have that.

“Happy Hunger Games.”

* * *

They take them to the mayor’s and lock them in the parlor.

The door closes and her face opens and he has no idea what to say to this girl, who he’s known since he was a kid. He knew her when she didn’t have front teeth and wore the same blue dress to school every day and now they’re locked in the parlor and are probably going to be dead in two weeks.

“Jesus,” he says and runs a hand through his hair. “Jesus, don’t cry.”

“I’m not,” she says.

She is.

For a moment they just stand there and stare at each other. Maybe this is what it will be like the whole time. Maybe they won’t talk because it’ll be easier to pretend they don’t know each other. To pretend they didn’t grow up training together—for the yearly dance performance, where she was always the lead, or in the mandatory combat classes, that they school made them take, just in case.

And then suddenly she’s speaking all in a rush. “My family,” she says. “When you win you have to promise to take care of them.”

“When I—?” He can’t even think the last word.

She nods. “I’ve seen you train with your brothers. You’re strong. Not bad with an axe. I think if you can be strategic, let your emotions go, you can win it.”

He opens his mouth. Because he’s seen her train too. She’s fast and agile with a dancer’s balance. She’s not going to win in hand to hand combat—but she wouldn’t need to. And she’s smart too. If she could just—

She holds up a hand before he can speak. “Don’t.”

Silver rings glint on her fingers. She lifts the hem of her skirt, pushes a leg towards him defiantly. A line of scar tissue cuts down her shin. “I’m still healing,” she says. “It’s got to be you.”

She’s smiling through her tears, eyes huge and it’s been a long time since they trained together. He still remembers, though, how good they were together. How they won every sparring match when they were paired. How he’d swing a punch, and she’d duck under his arm with a kick. How they always seemed to know where the other was in space. And he doesn’t really know what that was, only that they only got better with practice. 

He sits down next to her on the couch. They were good together. And now—for the rest of their lives—they’re going to be linked. Two tributes.

He could be furious about it—unleash the anger that’s been simmering in his stomach since they called his name. He could break down into tears. He could start to plan for how to win. For how to make her win. But he doesn’t want reality. And so he wraps an arm around her shoulder. “We’re both going to win,” he says.

She opens her mouth.

“Don’t.”

She nods against his shoulder and doesn’t.

* * *

The dream breaks the moment his family pours into the parlor, surrounding him, and overflowing out the door.

And he forgets it all together until they meet Marina on the train.

With her dyed red hair, bangs cut in a line two inches above her brow, she’s a hybrid of Capitol and District–a gilded piece of jewelry, where the gold has worn away in places to show the cheap brass.

She takes one look at them and drops a hand onto each of their shoulders. Pulls them next to each other. “Yes,” she says. “Very beautiful. Very good together. Could get you many sponsors.”

His shoulder presses against hers. Beauty might get them a few luxuries in the arena, but it isn’t going to win the games. Beauty is going to make them a target. And he’s about to say that when Tessa speaks.

“We want to win,” she says.

We.

He blinks. They haven’t talked since the mayor’s. Since his family left him with tears and promises and tokens. He hadn’t thought she had believed him. He hadn’t really meant it.

Marina raises an eyebrow and it arches to meet her red bangs. “Oh?”

Tessa takes his hand, her fingers clenching tightly around his. “Yes,” she says, like she’s daring Marina.

He shoots her a glance. Her jaw is set, her mouth pressed together. He wishes he could ask her what exactly she’s thinking.

“Many many beautiful tributes,” Marina says. “Not many winners.”

Not many winners, but she’s gotten close. He doesn’t like that he can conjure up Marina’s past tributes—the ones who made it to the final three, before drowning in a flood, the girl who died of poison a minute before the winner—but he can and she’s gotten them far. He doesn’t know what the others have lacked. Luck? But this year it’s them. And maybe, just maybe, that will be the difference.

“Make us winners,” he says. And for the first time he really means it.

And that must have been what Marina wanted because suddenly she’s talking training plans and outfits. Strategy and sponsors.

They don’t stop talking as the train roars across snow-covered plains that glitter diamond bright in the setting sun. Tessa never lets go of his hand. 

* * *

In the days that follow, she is remade.

If the Reaping set fire to her life, and flash-burned it to the ground around her, then the train to the Capitol was the first rain. It watered the tiny seeds, whose skins had burned away in the fire, and set them to sprouting.

She’s waxed and scoured by her prep team. Her face covered in stinging masks, her scalp burning with dye. And all the while, they talk. They pity her. They tell her to enjoy the food while she can. That they’re jealous of all the attention she’ll get. That at least she’ll be pretty for the cameras. And the words burn just as much as the creams and ointments they slather on her body.

When she emerges, hours later, her body is raw, but her mind is hardened. She will not indulge in self-pity, or pain. If they are going to win—and they are—she cannot be weak for even an instant.

She will let them remake her. She will remake herself.

And if she is to be remade, it is in his image.

It starts with her hair. She’s never particularly liked the color. Not quite brown, not quite red, not quite blonde. But now it’s a dark brown that she doesn’t even realize matches his until he reaches out and plucks a strand from her shoulder.

Her dress for the parade is red, tempered with a layer of black gauze to match his dark ensemble.  

They strike a pose on the chariot. Chins up, shoulders back. Defiant. Dangerous. And then he reaches for her hand and that’s dangerous too. The way his fingers are soft against hers. The way he squeezes tight, a moment before they emerge onto the street.

And then the crowds are screaming and she’s not prepared. They’re screaming her name and all she can hear is her sister screaming at the Reaping. Her mother screaming as she’s pulled from the mayor’s parlor. And who are these people? And how dare they even say her name?

She is not theirs. She will give them her hair, her beautiful dress, and her beatific smile. She will give them her face to plaster on screens a hundred feet tall. And if she must, she will give her name, to fall from this lips like she’s their dearest friend. But she is not theirs.

A flower falls at her feet and she turns, just an inch, but it’s enough to see him.

His shirt is sheer and black, with a pattern picked across it like veins. Like hers. His hair is dark and slicked back. Like hers. His eyes are tight, his jaw is clenched shut, like he’s projecting her deepest emotions on his own face. As if he doesn’t know better than to bury them.

“Smile,” she says.

And he does. And perhaps she can remake him too. 

* * *

They have a strategy.

It’s Marina’s idea, mostly. But they’re the ones who have to live it. Who have to wake up each morning and eat breakfast together in the Training Center. Who have pull on matching workout clothes and train with knives and axes and hand-to-hand combat. Who have to stay joined at the hip at lunch.

If they are going to win it—and they’re going to win it—they need to be a couple in every sense of the word but one.

They need every sponsor to want them. To want the two of them, together.

And they need to be good. They need to be worth supporting. That means hours of practice. Hours of forcing her body to be stronger. Hours of ignoring the pain in her shins.

Still, she looks at herself in the mirror one day. She’s wearing black leggings, slashed with scars mesh and a black top that leaves a few inches of her hardened stomach bare. And he’s next to her, in black track pants and a t-shirt stained with sweat. And she looks at him.

There are muscles in his arms that weren’t there before. When he lifts his arm, to heave up a weighted sandbag, she sees the lines of his hips. 

They’re stronger. And they’re stronger together. And they’ll be even better during their interviews. She’s spent evenings looking at clothing with Marina and their stylists. Running her fingers over floaty gauze skirts and satin. Examining beading and necklines. A dozen different white shirts for him. Gilded armor.

He catches her gaze and drops the sandbag. Winks. “Not slacking off, are you?” he mutters, stepping closer, running his hand along her arm.

She bites her lip, angles her head so that the District One girl who loves to gossip will see. Lets out a tiny laugh. “Plotting,” she breathes, moving her head just a fraction closer to his.

He stares into her eyes, his face an inch from hers. His breath is hot on her face. She can smell the juice he drank in the morning. Her face is hot. Her eyes inches from his unflinching gaze.

She steps back.

They have a strategy.

* * *

She makes the plans. He makes the allies.

It shouldn’t have to be that way. She’s funny—when she whispers a comment about what that boy from District Three looks like when he tries to throw a spear, when she points out how for all its wealth, the Capitol never learned how to make poached eggs that aren’t rubbery. Every other word in training is a laugh.

But the minute he sits down with other tributes at lunch, she’s quiet.

“I don’t understand,” he says one night, when Marina’s finally gone, and they’ve retreated to one of their rooms—hers, this time. He’s splayed out on the couch at the end of her bed, feet propped on the arm.

She’s cross legged on the bed, chin resting on folded hands. “I talk,” she says. “All the time.”

“When Meryl asked you how training was going today, you looked at me to answer.”

“Meryl has eyes. She can see.”

He scrunches up his nose. “She could be a good ally. She’ll get sponsors.”

“I don’t know why,” Tessa mutters. “They’re both so boring.” And then she forces her face into a robotic smile and he snickers.

Because this is what she keeps hidden away from the rest of the tributes. If they saw her like this, they wouldn’t call her cold. (And surely they’ve said worse, but if they said it in his earshot, well, they might enter the arena with twenty-three tributes, whether the Capitol likes it or not.)

He turns his head, and the couch is soft against his cheek. “Remember when I was nine and you were seven?”

She pulls her hair back into a knot on top of her head. “I had a partner for the carnival performance. Who I said was boring. And then your aunt made us dance together.” She smiles.

“Some things never change, I guess.”

She throws a pillow at him. “Remember when we started training in school, and you nearly broke your toe because you were so eager to show off to your friends?”

“Remember when your sister and my cousin…”

“Remember when we all stole a bottle of vodka from…”

Remember, remember, remember.

And he does. He remembers all of it. How she was so tiny back then—and how he was too. They were shorter than half the kids in their class. And it’s so unfair, that he’s known her for so long. It’s so unfair that he can see the end.

Because in three days they’ll be tested by the Gamemakers. And then there’ll be interviews. And then the Games. There'll be no more staying up half the night talking. No more falling asleep at different ends of the bed, curled up like puppies. No more waking up and seeing her brilliant green eyes across from him, her hair tangled from sleep.

No more them.

He wishes he could lock the door and never leave the room. To forget allies and training and testing and plans. Because none of that matters if he gets three more days, three more hours of her like this.

But she makes the plans. And so when she tells him to sleep, he does. She probably wanted him to go back to his room, but instead, he stretches out on her couch, and closes his eyes, and thinks he’ll take just three more seconds.

* * *

There’s no such thing as perfect, but by the time the interview looms, they’re as ready as they’ll ever be.

(As ready as anyone can be in the face of probable death.)

Her prep team pulls back her hair and paints on her face and drapes her in her dress. And then they’re gone, and she’s alone in her room, and the hours left stretch like days as she sits on her bed and tries to make a lifetime out of minutes.

There’s a knock at the door. She pulls it open and he’s standing there.

His hair is sticking up - she can picture him running a hand over it - and she feels a rush of fondness. She’s seen him make the gesture a million times. Back at home. During training. The nights they spend talking. The mornings when he wakes up in her bed - or rather at the foot of it - and rolls over and scrubs a hand across his face.

Words sprout and wilt on her tongue. And it’s strange because they’ve never had a problem talking. These past weeks, even when they’ve been smiling fake smiles, they’ve talked through their teeth.

And still, he’s standing there.

“Well,” she says at last. And the word expands to fill the ridiculous, opulent room they’ve given her. It’s pure white. Perfectly minimalistic in its furniture. Perfectly pure.

He reaches out a hand then and catches her fingers. It’s almost tentative. Nothing like the casual touching in the training room. A hand on an elbow, to correct a stance. A slap on the shoulder after a job well done. Fingers trailing down her back as he shifts behind her.

She can’t breathe.

And then a door slams open. “Save for the cameras,” Marina laughs, when she sees them.

And because she is a good and obedient student, because she’s planned this, because she wants to, she does as she’s told.

For the next six hours she scans every room for the camera. Looks straight in the lens before smoothing his collar. Angles her head to whisper in his ear. Rests their clasped hands on her knee.

Let them wonder. Let them guess. Let them see.

Maybe he heard Marina too, because he leans even closer when they talk, trails a hand down her arm in the elevator, splays a hand wide on her back, tucks her into his side as they sit in the train.

It is true and it is more than true. It is what they are and it is larger than they will ever be. It is theirs and it is more than theirs.

On stage, the cameras stare at the tributes from every angle; and an even hungrier crowd cranes forward in their seats, hungry for them. They crave their stories. The little girl, barely old enough to be chosen. The unlucky siblings. The child prodigies.

She wonders what they could have been, if they’d let this city decide: she’d be the docile, innocent injured girl. He’d be the hometown hero, the outgoing golden boy. 

That’s a good story. But, by the time it’s over, they’ll tell a better one.

They call her name. She steps out into the lights.

It starts out easy. Complimenting her dress - look at that neckline, look at the beading. She smooths a hand down the front. “Isn’t it gorgeous?” It’s white. Marina insisted even when she’d begged for something else. “It makes me look like a child.”

“You are child,” Marina had said.

What she hadn’t said was that it makes her look like a bride. With her hair is and her makeup on, she looks innocent, untouchable. The type of girl you put on a pedestal.

Caesar’s hair is blood red. He smiles and it’s a gruesome mirror - white teeth, red gums.

She plasters on a smile.

“I want to talk about your fellow tribute,” he says, half way through. “I heard from a little bird that the two of you knew each other before the games.”

She nods. “Scott and I have been friends since we were children.”

“And we’ve all seen the footage of you two training,” he says with a wink.

“Were we any good?” she says eagerly.

That gets a laugh. “I think your scores can tell you that. But you two are...inseparable. Surely you know that.”

“It’s nice to have a friend from home in the Capitol.”

She watches his face as she says it and sees Caesar lean closer, the crowd shift in their seats.

“I don’t mean to spread gossip,” he says. “But are you more than friends? You look so good together!”

She laughs. “What a compliment! We have to thank our stylists for that, I think. Our whole team here in the Capitol has been so helpful these past weeks.”

Caesar nods encouragingly.

She shoots a glance towards the wings. He’s standing there, a producer at either elbow. He smiles.

She bites the inside of her cheek, waits a beat too long. And then she turns back to him. “Sorry, what was I saying?”

Caesar shakes his head and turns to the audience. “I know you all can’t see it - but I think she just noticed a certain someone watching backstage.”

She tilts her head, serene.

Caesar winks. “No need to say anymore, my dear. I think unfortunately, our time with you is over.”

She joins the rest of the tributes in the crowd, and watches as the screens blast pre-recorded footage of him. Shots of his face at the reaping. At the chariot parade. Training. And Caesar is right. She’s always just beside him. Even when they try to make it footage just of him, there’s her elbow, a flash of her hair, the fabric of her dress, just outside the frame.

And then he’s on the stage. He’s in a white shirt, dark pants, an unassuming outfit, if you didn’t know how long they spent matching the fabric of his shirt to her dress. He runs a hand over his hair, like he always does, and then he looks up and spots her in the crowd and drops his hand.

Caesar starts easy. Makes him talk about his family, about growing up, about what he misses at home. But soon - sooner than with her, he pivots. “Can you describe your relationship?”

“We’re friends,” he says and then pauses. “Look, I’ve known Tess since we were kids. We grew up together. And now we’re in this new place, away from our families and our friends. It makes sense that we’d stick together. It’s made me feel better about all of this to have someone with me.”

The camera is on her face. She doesn’t need to look at the screens to know that. She just looks at him, and smiles. It’s nothing. A single look. But still the crowd sighs. And she knows she has them.

She could step onto stage now and kiss him and it wouldn’t be as exciting as this. The hint of something more. The tease of a smile. The secret that the whole world is in on.

After, he joins her in the audience and brushes his fingers against hers. There’s a flurry of cameras, and the crowd is buzzing with their names. Their names, and no one elses.

When they’re finally alone, Marina wraps them both in a hug. “Perfect,” she says. “Perfect moment.”

* * *

He measures their success with the cameras.

Before, they were impartial eyes in the training rooms, flitting from one to another with equal time for all.

Now, they’re prying, hungry things that stare them down at dinner, chase them into elevators, maybe even prowl into their rooms. And he can’t help but hate them.

Except with the cameras comes the money. Marina takes call after call, reapplies on layer after layer of lipstick, even turns down sponsors who don’t offer enough.

It almost feels like magic, because they didn’t _do_ anything. Or they did. But it’s just a little polish. Just a few slights of hand to direct the crowd’s attention. Illusion. Not reality.

And when he’s so scared of cameras he can’t even talk to her anymore. When he has to think through every gesture of his hand, every word he says at dinner, he tries to remind himself that this is all for a reason. They want the impossible. They want to win. And if the only price is feeling cheap and dirty, then it’s a price he should pay gladly.

Or maybe he only worries because it stops him from finishing the sentence. From thinking that this is the price of his life. He can’t even comprehend that in a week, he’ll most likely be dead. Or worse, she’ll be dead.

They take them on hovercrafts to the arena, let them change into their uniforms. They’re given athletic pants, sturdy shoes, a warm coat, a hat.

And then, somehow, miraculously, he gets a minute alone with her. The stylists leave the doors unlocked. Step out to check for missing gear, and then she’s slipping into his room and into his arms.

For a few long moments, they stand there. He can feel her breath. He can feel her heartbeat. He listens her heart and tries to twist his own to match. He can’t control what happens in the area. But he can control this.

And he’d stand here forever, except maybe this is the last time he can ever say anything to her. The last moment before they step onto a stage they may never leave.

How do you say a goodbye that shouldn’t be one? Good luck? Be safe?

He steps back, looks in her eyes. They’re clear and green and watch him, not like the cameras, but like she’s trying to memorize him. “No matter what,” he says, “Tess, no matter what happens out there—”

She lifts a finger to his lips. “We’re going to win.”

“But if we don’t—”

Someone knocks on the door and he crushes her to him again. Her fingers dig into his back. And maybe if they can hold tight enough, they’ll fuse together like coal into diamonds and no one will ever be able to let them go.

But then she breaks the bond. And turns. And leaves.

She’s not gone for long. He sees her ten minutes later. She’s directly across from him, in the circle of tributes, the cornucopia golden between them.

The countdown begins.

The cannon sounds.

The cameras roll.

The games begin.

* * *

There’s something to be said for all those hours of practice. For the tenth set of exercises in the training section. For the hundredth time they talked through strategy.

Because she doesn’t even think. She runs.

The world narrows. She hears only the roaring of her pulse in her ears, setting a beat as she runs for cover.

It’s a beautiful arena. In the tense moments, before it all started, she got glimpses of fog shrouded mountains and a glimpse of stormy ocean. But they’re far away. And outside of the clearing where the cornucopia rests, everything is green, green trees.

She runs for cover, pushing aside pine branches that scrape her face and drip with dew. Her feet sink deep into loamy soil, and she pulls herself up steep inclines with tree trunks as hand holds. She runs until her legs are cramping and then she hauls herself into a hole made by a fallen tree’s upended roots and sobs as the cannon goes off ten times.

Their faces aren’t projected in the sky yet. So she doesn’t know if it was him.

It can’t be him.

The last time she saw him, he had a pack of supplies and weapon in his hand. And if she hasn’t seen him dead then he’s alive.

It’s all part of the plan: separate early, reunite soon. But she’s trained and trained and still the panic bubbles like acid in her throat and still she sees flashes of blood that her brain can’t quite forget.

Shouts echo through the trees and she freezes. She’s not that well-hidden. If they walk past and see her, she’s trapped. Her legs hurt too much to run.

She curls deeper into her hollow and thinks about training. If they come she can attack. They practiced this a thousand times, his hands on her shoulders, hips. Grip the knife, stab forward, duck.

She clutches the knife and wishes it were his fingers. If they come, she’ll be ready.

But they run past, and she’s completely, miserably alone until the anthem plays and she sees the faces of the dead. And it’s not him. It’s not him. But it’s faces she knows. And she spends the night with screams and ghosts. She did not train for the ghosts.

In the morning, the sun rises and she pieces her shattered will together.

She will not think. She will act. She is trained. She will survive this.

* * *

It’s like something out of a goddamn story, the way they find each other again.

She’s walking through the forest when she hears a shout, a groan, a wail. She shouldn’t. But something in her stomach drags her closer. Because it sounded like him. 

But she has a knife. And something about that sound. 

There’s a body on the ground. A boy with dark hair.

She drops to her knees. And oh god, it can’t be him. She won’t even think it. She reaches for the shoulder with shaking hands.

“Don’t!” a voice cries.

She thinks two things at once. First, it’s him. Second, she didn’t hear a cannon.

“Tess, duck!”

She drops flat to the ground and something heavy whooshes over head, landing with a wet thunk in the dirt inches away. A knife.

The body jackknifes to his feet and she rolls and he’s stepping out from a tree and in front of her.

“You said set a trap,” the body—a District Four tribute—snarls.

“Not her.”

“Only one of you gets to win, lover boy,” says District Four. “It can be you, if you want.”

She’s on her feet then, knife out, lunging for the boy. He’s thrown one knife, but he has another and Scott can’t see and—

She slashes widely, catching his shoulder. The boy roars and drops the knife.

Scott grabs her arm and pulls her into the trees. “Run, run, run.”

Their feet pound on the ground. The boy pounds after them.

And then something hot slices across her shoulder and he’s scooping her up into his arms.

Sometime later, they stop. Her vision is blurry. She doesn’t know what happened to the other boy. She thinks he’s dead.

He lays her on the ground and white hot pain stabs through her.

“You’re fine,” he whispers, face huge above hers. “You’re gonna be fine. We can bandage this up and keep going.”

Red stains his shirt. She reaches up a hand. “You’re bleeding.”

“No,” he says, soft. “That’s yours.” And the world fades away.

When she wakes, the sky is blue and the air is crisp. Her nose is cold, but there’s an arm over her stomach and a warmer body behind her.

She inhales. Her shoulder is stiff, but her vision is steady now.

She rolls to face him and suddenly his face is right there.

He’s still asleep, but frown lines crease his forehead where they didn’t before. He hasn’t shaved in a while. His jawline cuts across his face. She reaches out to trace it and stops. “Hi,” she breathes.

She sees the moment his eyes flutter open, crossing the hazy border between sleep and wake. And it’s like something in a goddamn story, the way his face lights up.

His arm tightens around her and then he’s crushing her against his chest. “You’re alright,” he mutters into her hair. “You’re alright, you’re alright.”

She nods into his chest and then looks up. They’re practically sharing the same breath. And so it’s easy to lean forward half an inch and press her lips to his.

His hands are in her hair and she’s grabbing his shoulders. And she hadn’t realized how much every tiny moment was summing to this. She’d discounted every touch by the weight of the cameras. But now, she wonders if they only pulled things taught. And now the string has snapped.

And then a tiny parachute floats down from the sky and he grabs it from the air and unwraps the first hot food they’ve seen in days.

They liked the kiss, she thinks dully. Because of course they had. Of course they’d seen.

It should taste delicious, but the bread is concrete on her lips.

* * *

He hadn’t realized how completely he’d organized his life around her until she was gone. He’d looked for in fights, reached for her when he’d won. And when she hadn’t been there, it was like the floor dropped out from under his feet.

Now that she’s back, his life slowly returns to equilibrium, and they make new patterns too.

He helps her stand, first. Helps her stretch out her shoulder.

He lifts her up and carries her to shelter when the acid rain begins.

Food comes more frequently now.

He’ll brush a hand down her cheek and there will be a basket of apples.

Press his lips to her temple and it’s an entire pie.

They don’t talk about it. But he feels the way her eyes watch him. The way she finds him when she’s hungry, like Pavlov’s dogs. And if he touches her and they get food, well, he tells himself he was going to do it anyways. And that they need the food.

Still, despite it all, they haven’t kissed since the bread.

He wonders if he dreamed it, sometimes. But then, one night, when there’s only four of them left in the whole arena, she sits and drapes her legs over his knees and they start talking.

About their families. And memories. About what they miss from home. And how she’d do anything for another day with her family. And how he’d do this all over to protect his.

And he wraps an arm around her good shoulder. And she leans her head against his chest.

And he bends his head down to brush his lips against hers.

And then the fire starts.

And then they run.

* * *

Everything is golden in the flames. The cornucopia. The sky. The reflection of destruction in his eyes.

The forest chars. And the lake boils. And within an hour, there’s nowhere to go but up the cornucopia. It’s hot and slippery but she wedges her feet in between the gaps and pulls with her arms and somehow she climbs.

They reach the top. And then there’s the glint of a sword, wielded by the last tribute. And in the fire, that’s golden too.

The flames lick closer, and if she falls, she’ll break something. But if she doesn’t jump away from the sword she’ll die.

But then he’s there on the other side, pushing the boy off the top, sending him toppling down.

And then he’s reaching out a hand and helping her to the top.

The cannon sounds.

It’s just the two of them on top of the world. With cameras in their faces and determination woven like iron into their grip.

She looks at him. He looks at her.

“We did it,” he says.

And she shakes her head. Because the games aren’t over. They’ll keep the fire until one of them burns or throws the other on the pyre. Doesn’t he know that it’s worse to have come so far, and so now they have to pick?

“My family,” she begins. Because she’s injured and weaker and if she were betting it would be him.

“Together,” he says. “We promised.”

She hadn’t promised, on the train. She’d hoped. She’d dreamed. She’d schemed. And in those schemes, there was only one way they made it out alive. One bet. That the gamemakers would rather have two winners than none. That they’d rather the spectacle and outcry of a rule change than the crush of  tragedy.

And she’d bet that the world would love them enough that they wouldn’t accept anything less than victory.

She’s not sure they’ve done enough. She hasn’t watched the games. Maybe they’ve gambled their lives on far too weak a performance.

But they’ve done all they can. And if they try and argue which of them is going to win, here and now, there isn’t going to be an answer. And he’s stronger than her and so he’d probably make her live and that’s not going to work.

Together. Either they were both going to win, or they weren’t. And they need to do it now. If they wait, the blood that’s leaching out of the wound on her side is going to get worse. And if the gamemakers see, maybe they’ll just wait her out. Let him hold her dying body.

That would be a good story. They have to tell a better one.

She reaches into her pocket. Her fingers meet berries. She holds out her palm to him, and he takes exactly half.

“Together,” she breathes, and reaches her hand to his mouth.

His fingers press against her lips. She waits an inhale. Lets a tear fall down her face.

Opens her lips.

The fire roars closer. She feels his pulse on her lips. Her vision swims.

“Stop!”

She drops her hand, spits out the berries. And they fall to their knees, arms around one another.

* * *

They tell her that after, he didn’t want to leave her. That he clutched her hand until they sedated him and even then they had to pry his fingers free.

She feels him like a phantom limb, like an ache in the bones of her right hand.

And that’s all he is, a phantom, because they won’t let her see him. Even when she’s healed, after the doctors have sealed her wounds, and smoothed her scars, she’s alone.

She paces her room. She pounds on the doors. She exercises her weakened limbs until her stomach burns and her lungs ache. And still no one comes.

Maybe he’s dead. Maybe she’s dead and this is twisted purgatory. Her hell would be a solitary one.

Two days later, the door unlocks and Marina walks in. “Golden,” she says. “You were golden. And they don’t like it.”

That’s how she learns. He’s alive. They both won. They might still die.

And it wasn’t that she was triumphant before—she’d long since shed the hope that she’d feel anything but grief if they survived—but grief could be dampened, if they were just alive. If her family and his didn’t have to spend the rest of their lives mourning. If there was even a chance he could be happy again. (Because he was always the one who grief would cut more. He’d always felt more deeply. And she could build armor. She could hide it better.)

“They think it was you,” Marina says. “That you planned it.”

She twists her lips. If they suspected then they didn’t plan it well enough.

Or maybe they’d tried to fool the wrong people. They’d played to the cameras, but they hadn’t fooled the judges. Or the president.

They won the battle. He’ll crush them in the war.

“Tell me how we can stay alive,” she says.

Once Marina’s done laying out the plan, she nods. It’s ruthless and brutal and breaks her heart.

But she knows Marina’s right. They’ll go after him to get to her. So she can’t have him.

She can play pretty for the cameras, for now, but once they’re back home, she has to be done. If she doesn’t care, they won’t hurt him.

And he can’t know.

Still, that can’t matter now. There are bodies on the ground, faces in the sky. What’s one more lie to save him?

* * *

He takes her hand on the way to the stage.

“Sell,” Marina says, smoothing his hair, and then hers. “Sell it.”

“It’s not—” he begins, but Tessa holds up a hand.

“Listen to Marina.”

It’s like she slapped him. But he just doesn’t understand. What did they do to her, those days that she was healing? They had to have done something. Because it had been different before. The two of them against the world.

And now. Now it feels like she can barely stand the sight of him.

He watches her and sees the moment a mask of happiness brightens her face.  And had she done that before? Is the mask new? Or is he only noticing now?

Their clothes are ridiculous. He’s in a sports uniform. And she’s in a long tulle skirt—a pink ballerina. It’s obvious this story that they’re trying to tell. Look at them, look at these children. They’re two silly kids who are maybe in love and don’t know any better. They’re not people who manipulated the games. They dress up after killing people.

When he puts an arm around her, she flinches. And so he rests his hand on the back of the chair instead and grits his teeth.

Caesar talks to him, mostly, and he says mindless things about how all he could think about was finding her. She scoots her chair closer and buries into his side and practically hides her face. Like she didn’t plan any of it. Like the strategy wasn’t hers from the start.

The lights are bright and the questions are inane and he smiles through his annoyance and then thankfully it’s over.

They walk off the stage, waving at the ecstatic crowd, and the minute they’re in the wings, she drops his hand.

He reaches for it again, because there are still stylists and crew backstage.

She shrugs him off.

“What’s wrong?” he mutters, leaning close to her ear.

She glares and gathers up her pink tulle skirts and walks faster.

In the elevator, she stands next to Marina. And when they’re back up in their apartments, she locks her door and doesn’t open when he knocks.

He doesn’t see her at all until the train back home. They’re in their training uniforms and crying fans throw flowers at their feet.

The minute the door closes, her corners her.

“There aren’t cameras,” he says. “Goddamn it we’re alone. Will you tell me what I did wrong?”

She presses her lips together. “Nothing.”

“Then what did they do to you?”

“Nothing.”

He feels anger then, and he doesn’t realize how numb he’s been this past month. But how dare they. They made him play their games. And then they won. And they still took her. They were supposed to be together. That was the whole point. And now.

Her eyes are flat. Her face impassive.

He stares at her. “So it was all for the Games then?”

For a second she’s a live wire, eyes sparking, jaw clenching.

But then her face drops. “I don’t know,” she breathes. And leaves him standing in the hall, alone.

* * *

The train slows as it nears the station and he can hear the crowd at least half a mile away, chanting their names.

He’s sick with nerves and just plain sick.

The train stops and she takes his hand.

Her face is perfectly blank. But when the cameras turn on and the doors open, she lights up like the sun.

* * *

After hours of cameras and interviews and sobbing families, they’re done. They take them to the victor’s village, and their two perfect homes, with two perfect lawns, across a perfect, empty street.

And then it’s really over.

No more games.

No more press.

No more hand clenching his like a ward against the questions.

But at least it’s over.

* * *

Until it isn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: obviously this is a fully fictional piece of writing. yes, it's rpf. yes, i'm (mostly) sorry. no, i didn't mean for it to get this long but whatever i got to listen to the hunger games soundtrack on repeat which was fun.
> 
> hope you enjoyed! let me know if you did. 
> 
> (i wrote parts of this, alternately, on very little sleep, on the notes app of my phone, and while i was very sick and taking benadryl. so please forgive any small canonical errors. also, in order to write the au, i made some changes to both source materials. hopefully it makes for a better story!)


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